The present invention relates to an apparatus for enabling demand feeding of fish. More particularly, the present invention is directed to provide an electronic apparatus for enabling feeding of fish upon sensing signals from the fish whose sizes vary and include the smallest of fish Electrical characteristics of the apparatus enable adaptability of the apparatus for use in controlling any of a variety of electrically actuated feed dispensers for dispensing feed having any desired moisture content or granular size. Controls are provided for controlling other aspects of the feeding process including the sensitivity of the apparatus to the strike of a fish, the quantity of feed dispensed per operative signal, and the minimum temporal delay between signals which can be operative.
Although the fish industry itself has ancient origins, farming of fish is a relatively new aspect of the industry and has experienced rapid growth in recent years. Extensive fish farms and fish hatcheries have, thus, become popular, and means for enabling feeding in such facilities is essential. Research facilities are also becoming commonplace in the fish industry, and feeding means with sensitive and accurate controls of varied natures are useful in such research facilities.
Whether the facility is for research purposes or for basic farming purposes, it is advantageous for the feeding means which is employed to enable optimization of the feeding process. Controlling the amount of feed which is dispensed is crucial to maximize the growth rate of the fish while minimizing the amount of wasted food which is caused by excessive feeding. Enabling variation in the types of feed which are dispensable, is also advantageous, particularly in the situation where smaller and finer feed is necessary for feeding younger or smaller sized fish. Dispersion of the dispensed feed is also advantageous, not only to enable greater access by more fish since dispersed feed is spread over a larger area, but also to protect the marketability of the fish since bruising and other damage can result from concentrated feeding.
While care of young fish can be advantageous to production of older, more marketable fish, the care of young fish, in both research facilities as well as farming facilities, is of particular concern and need. In the past, feeding of such fish has virtually always been achieved by hand or by feeding apparatus which are actuated by timers. As will be seen, such apparatus have disadvantages, and it is an object of the present invention to be more advantageous than the previous methods and apparatus.
Probably the simplest of means for feeding fish in a farm or hatchery is to scatter the feed into the waterways (raceways), of the farm using one's hands, a coffee can, or similar means to scatter the feed in a manner similar to the traditional feeding of pigeons in a park. Although such feeding may be economical due to the minimum cost of the dispensing means, the control is often guess-work and inaccurate and such feeding operation can require extensive, sometimes almost continuous, man hours, particularly with larger sized farms.
Demand feeding (also known as response feeding) has become a very popular means for feeding fish in a farm. Demand feeders, by definition, dispense feed upon receiving or sensing signals from the fish to be fed. Virtually all demand feeders are simple in design, economical, and fairly trouble free; however, demand feeders have severe limitations. Conventional demand feeders comprise a rigid container with a funnel-shaped aperture through which feed is influenced by the force of gravity. A pendulum is suspended from above the funnel-shaped aperture and is positioned to descend through the aperture The pendulum and the aperture are designed to obstruct the flow of the feed through the funnel-shaped aperture except when the pendulum is struck by a fish in the water below; this striking by the fish both agitates the feed to stimulate its dispensation by gravity and also enables the dispensation by varying the size and shape of the space through which the feed may be dispensed. Since fish readily learn to strike the pendulum when feed is desired by the fish, the fish may effectively be fed upon demand, which demand is signaled by the striking of the fish against the pendulum. Such demand feeding is believed by many to be the optimum type of feeding from the farmer's perspective since the feed is ideally dispensed only when the fish desire to consume the feed. In this way, wasting of excessive feed is avoided while the fish may also consume the maximum amount of feed and thus sustain maximum growth rate.
However, demand feeding has several severe limitations. To begin with, the conventional demand feeder cannot be operated by tiny fish since sensing the strike of a tiny fish requires extreme sensitivity, and the strike of a tiny fish is not substantial enough to adequately agitate the feed in a conventional demand feeder. Furthermore, the feed from a conventional demand feeder is dispensed vertically downward and concentrated on a relatively small location of the raceway rather than being dispersed uniformly over a larger area. This concentrated dispensation tends to allow larger ones of different sized fish within a single tank to exclude the smaller fish from feeding since the larger fish can fend off the smaller ones. Concentrated feeding also tends to cause damage to the feeding fish since the fish are in close contact with each other and bruising often occurs.
Electronic means to scatter the feed, such as the conventional deer feeder, are useful in alleviating the problem of concentrated feed dispensation; however, such scattering means for feeding fish have heretofore only been operable by preset timers which, accordingly, circumvent the advantages of demand feeders.
Furthermore, conventional demand feeders cannot dispense certain kinds of feed. Finely ground feed tends to flow directly through the aperture of a conventional demand feeder without regard to the obstruction of the pendulum. This flow-through problem with finely ground feed in conventional demand feeders destroys the usefulness of conventional demand feeders for finely ground feed.
Moist feeds, as well, present problems with conventional demand feeders since moist feeds tend to clog in the funnel-shaped aperture. Scatter-type dispensing means minimize these problems with both finely ground feed as well as the moist feeds; however, as previously mentioned, there have been no means utilized in the past for operating a scatter-type feeder on a demand basis. The timers necessary for operation of the scatter-type feeders in the past have also presented economical considerations since typical timers tend to be relatively expensive, and, therefore, substantially increase the cost of a fish-feeding operation.
Therefore, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a means for enabling demand feeding of tiny fish. Inclusive in this primary object is another object to provide an extremely sensitive means for sensing the strike of a tiny fish and coordinating this sensing with means to actuate the dispensation of the desired feed. Further, it is an object of the present invention to enable dispensation of feeds of varied compositions, granular fineness, and moistness; dispensation of such feeds in a scattered manner is another object of the present invention. It is yet another object of the present invention to provide means for controlling the duration, quantity, and frequency of the dispensed feed, and further to effectuate such control in conjunction with a demand feeder. Overall, it is an object of the present invention to enable optimization of the feeding of fish, particularly, the feeding of tiny fish in hatcheries, research facilities, and fish farms, while also maximizing the economic factors of the operation of such means.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become evident to those skilled in the art in light of the following detailed description, viewed in conjunction with the referenced drawings, of a preferred exemplary system according to the invention. The foregoing and following descriptions of the invention are for exemplary purposes only. The true spirit of the invention is set forth in the appended claims.